CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)

THE LAST WISH

OF course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last)
chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be the
last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of getting
anything out of the Psammead, or Sand‐fairy.

But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy visions,
and, whereas on other days they had often found it extremely difficult to think
of anything really nice to wish for, their brains were now full of the most
beautiful and sensible ideas. “This,” as Jane remarked afterwards, “is always
the way.” Everyone was up extra early that morning, and these plans were
hopefully discussed in the garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred
pounds in modern florins
page: 280 was still first
favourite, but there were others that ran it close—the chief of these being the
“pony each” idea. This had a great advantage. You could wish for a pony each
during the morning, ride it all day, have it vanish at sunset and wish it back
again next day. Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at
breakfast two things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was
better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A cheer
arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the before‐breakfast
wish‐ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the wish of the day must be
something to please mother and not to please themselves.

“I wonder what she would like,” pondered Cyril.

“She’d like us all to be good,” said Jane primly.

“Yes—but that’s so dull for us,” Cyril rejoined; “and, besides, I should hope we
could be that without sand‐fairies to help us. No; it must be something
splendid, that we couldn’t possibly get without wishing for.”

“Look out,” said Anthea in a warning voice;
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“don’t forget yesterday. Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen
to be when we say ‘I wish.’ Don’t let’s let ourselves in for anything
silly—to‐day of all days.”

“All right,” said Cyril. “You needn’t jaw.”

Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the teapot—and a face
full of importance for the children.

“A blessing we’re all alive to eat our breakfasses!” she said darkly.

“Why, whatever’s happened?” everybody asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Martha, “only it seems nobody’s safe from being murdered in
their beds nowadays.”

“Why,” said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and legs and
out at her toes, “has anyone been murdered in their beds?”

“Well—not exactly,” said Martha; “but they might just as well. There’s been
burglars over at Peasmarsh Place—Beale’s just told me—and they’ve took every
single one of Lady Chittenden’s diamonds and jewels and things, and she’s
a‐goin’ out of one fainting fit into another,
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with hardly time to say ‘Oh, my diamonds!’ in between. And Lord Chittenden’s
away in London.”

“Lady Chittenden,” said Anthea; “we’ve seen her. She wears a red‐and‐white dress,
and she has no children of her own and can’t abide other folkses’.”

“That’s her,” said Martha. “Well, she’s put all her trust in riches, and you see
how she’s served. They say the diamonds and things was worth thousands of
thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river—whatever that is—and no
end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But there, I mustn’t
stand talking and all the place to clean down afore your ma comes home.”

“I don’t see why she should ever have had such a lot of diamonds,” said Anthea
when Martha had flounced off. “She was rather a nasty lady, I thought. And
mother hasn’t any diamonds, and hardly any jewels—the topaz necklace, and the
sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were engaged, and the garnet star, and
the little pearl brooch with great‐grandpapa’s hair in it,—that’s about
all.”

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“When I’m grown up I’ll buy mother no end of diamonds,” said Robert, “if she
wants them. I shall make so much money exploring Africa I shan’t know what to do
with it.”

“Wouldn’t it be jolly,” said Jane dreamily, “if mother could find all those
lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?”

“Ti‐aras,” said Cyril.

“Ti‐aras, then—and rings and everything in her room when she came home? I wish
she would.”

The others gazed at her in horror.

“Well, she will,” said Robert; “you’ve wished, my good Jane—and our
only chance now is to find the Psammead, and if it’s in a good temper it
may take back the wish and give us another. If
not—well—goodness knows what we’re in for!—the police, of course, and—Don’t cry,
silly! We’ll stand by you. Father says we need never be afraid if we don’t do
anything wrong and always speak the truth.”

But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how convincing
page: 284 the truth about the Psammead had been once
before when told to the police.

It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found. Nor the
jewels, though every one of the children searched their mother’s room again and
again.

“Of course,” Robert said, “we couldn’t find them. It’ll be mother
who’ll do that. Perhaps she’ll think they’ve been in the house for years and
years, and never know they are stolen ones at all.”

“Oh yes!” Cyril was very scornful; “then mother will be a receiver of stolen
goods, and you know jolly well what that’s worse than.”

Another and exhaustive search of the sand‐pit failed to reveal the Psammead, so
the children went back to the house slowly and sadly.

“I don’t care,” said Anthea stoutly, “we’ll tell mother the truth, and she’ll
give back the jewels—and make everything all right.”

“Do you think so?” said Cyril slowly. “Do you think she’ll believe us? Could
anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they’d seen it? She’ll think we’re
pretending.
page: 285 Or else she’ll think we’re
raving mad, and then we shall be sent to Bedlam. How would you like it?”—he
turned suddenly on the miserable Jane,—“how would you like it, to be shut up in
an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick straws in
your hair all day, and listen to the howling and ravings of the other maniacs?
Make up your minds to it, all of you. It’s no use telling mother.”

“But it’s true,” said Jane.

“Of course it is, but it’s not true enough for grown‐up people to believe it,”
said Anthea. “Cyril’s right. Let’s put flowers in all the vases, and try not to
think about diamonds. After all, everything has come right in the end all the
other times.”

So they filled all the pots they could find with flowers—asters and zinnias, and
loose‐leaved late red roses from the wall of the stable‐yard, till the house was
a perfect bower.

And almost as soon as dinner was cleared away mother arrived, and was clasped in
eight loving arms. It was very difficult indeed not to tell her all about the
Psammead at once, because they had got into the habit of telling
page: 286 her everything. But they did succeed in not telling
her.

Mother on her side, had plenty of tell them—about Granny and Granny’s pigeons,
and Auntie Emma’s lame tame donkey. She was very delighted with the
flowery‐boweryness of the house; and everything seemed so natural and pleasant,
now that she was home again, that the children almost thought they must have
dreamed the Psammead.

But, when Mother moved towards the stairs to go up to her bedroom and take off
her bonnet, the eight arms clung round her just as if she only had two children,
one the Lamb and the other an octopus.

“Nonsense, dears,” said mother briskly, “I’m not such an old woman yet that I
can’t take my bonnet off in the proper place. Besides, I must wash these black
hands of mine.”

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So up she went, and the children, following her, exchanged glances of gloomy
foreboding.

Mother took off her bonnet—it was a very pretty hat, really, with white roses in
it,—and when she had taken it off she went to the dressing‐table to do her
pretty hair.

On the table between the ring‐stand and the pin‐cushion lay a green leather case.
Mother opened it.

“Oh, how lovely!” she cried. It was a ring, a large pearl with shining
many‐lighted diamonds set round it. “Wherever did this come from?” mother asked,
trying it on her wedding finger, which it fitted beautifully. “However did it
come here?”

“I don’t know,” said each of the children truthfully.

“Father must have told Martha to put it here,” mother said. “I’ll run down and
ask her.”

“Let me look at it,” said Anthea, who knew Martha would not be able to see the
ring. But when Martha was asked, of course she denied putting the ring there,
and so did Eliza and cook.

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Mother came back to her bedroom, very much interested and pleased about the ring.
But, when she opened the dressing‐table drawer and found a long case containing
an almost priceless diamond necklace, she was more interested still, though not
so pleased. In the wardrobe, when she went to put away her “bonnet,” she found a
tiara and several brooches, and the rest of the jewellery turned up in various
parts of the room during the next half‐hour. The children looked more and more
uncomfortable, and now Jane began to sniff.

Mother looked at her gravely.

“Jane,” she said, “I am sure you know something about this. Now think before you
speak, and tell me the truth.”

“We found a Fairy,” said Jane obediently.

“No nonsense, please,” said her mother sharply.

“Don’t be silly, Jane,” Cyril interrupted. Then he went on desperately. “Look
here, mother, we’ve never seen the things before, but Lady Chittenden at
Peasmarsh Place
page: 289 lost all her jewellery by
wicked burglars last night. Could this possibly be it?”

All drew a deep breath. They were saved.

“But how could they have put it here? And why should they?” asked mother, not
unreasonably. “Surely it would have been easier and safer to make off with
it?”

“Suppose,” said Cyril, “they thought it better to wait for—for sunset—nightfall,
I mean, before they went off with it. No one but us knew that you were coming
back to‐day.”

“I must send for the police at once,” said mother distractedly. “Oh, how I wish
daddy were here!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait till he does come?” asked Robert,
knowing that his father would not come home before sunset.

“No, no; I can’t wait a minute with all this on my mind,” cried mother. “All
this” was the heap of jewel‐cases on the bed. They put them all in the wardrobe,
and mother locked it. Then mother called Martha.

“Martha,” she said, “has any stranger been into my room since I’ve been away?
Now, answer me truthfully.”

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“No, mum,” answered Martha; “leastways, what I mean to say”—

She stopped.

“Come,” said her mistress kindly; “I see someone has. You must tell me at once.
Don’t be frightened. I’m sure you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Martha burst into heavy sobs.

“I was a‐goin’ to give you warning this very day, mum, to leave at the end of my
month, so I was,—on account of me being going to make a respectable young man
happy. A gamekeeper he is by trade, mum—and I wouldn’t deceive you—of the name
of Beale. And it’s as true as I stand here, it was your coming home in such a
hurry, and no warning given, out of the kindness of his heart it was, as he
says, ‘Martha, my beauty,’ he says,—which I ain’t, and never was, but you know
how them men will go on,—‘I can’t see you a‐toiling and a‐moiling and not lend a
’elping ’and; which mine is a strong arm and it’s yours, Martha, my dear,’ says
he. And so he helped me a‐cleanin’ of the windows—but outside, mum, the whole
time,
page: 291 and me in; if I never say another
breathing word it’s the gospel truth.”

“Were you with him the whole time?” asked her mistress.

“Him outside me in, I was,” said Martha; “except for fetching up a fresh pail and
the leather that that slut of a Eliza’d hidden away behind the mangle.”

“That will do,” said the children’s mother. “I am not pleased with you, Martha,
but you have spoken the truth, and that counts for something.”

It was truly awful. Here was an innocent man accused of robbery through that
silly wish of Jane’s, and it was absolutely useless to tell the truth. All
longed to, but they thought of the straws in the hair and the shrieks of the
page: 292 other frantic maniacs, and they could not do
it.

“Is there a cart hereabouts?” asked mother feverishly. “A trap of any sort? I
must drive in to Rochester and tell the police at once.”

All the children sobbed, “There’s a cart at the farm, but, oh, don’t go!—don’t
go!—oh, don’t go!—wait until daddy comes home!”

Mother took not the faintest notice. When she had set her mind on a thing she
always went straight through with it; she was rather like Anthea in this
respect.

“Look here, Cyril,” she said, sticking on her hat with long sharp violet‐headed
pins, “I leave you in charge. Stay in the dressing‐room. You can pretend to be
swimming boats in the bath, or something. Say I give you leave. But stay here,
with the landing door open; I’ve locked the other. And don’t let anyone go into
my room. Remember, no one knows the jewels are there except me, and all of you,
and the wicked thieves who put them there. Robert, you stay in the garden and
watch the windows.
page: 293 If anyone tries to get in
you must run and tell the two farm men that I’ll send up to wait in the kitchen.
I’ll tell them there are dangerous characters about—that’s true enough. Now,
remember, I trust you both. But I don’t think they’ll try it till after dark, so
you’re quite safe. Good‐bye, darlings.”

And she locked her bedroom door and went off with the key in her pocket.

The children could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in which she had
acted. They thought how useful she would have been in organising escape from
some of the tight places in which they had found themselves of late in
consequence of their ill‐timed wishes.

“She’s a born general,” said Cyril,—“but I don’t know what’s going to happen to
us. Even if the girls were to hunt for that beastly Sammyadd and find it, and
get it to take the jewels away again, mother would only think we hadn’t looked
out properly and let the burglars sneak in and nick them—or else the police will
think we’ve got them—or else that she’s been fooling them. Oh, it’s
a pretty
page: 294 decent average ghastly mess this
time, and no mistake!”

He savagely made a paper boat and began to float it in the bath, as he had been
told to do.

Robert went into the garden and sat down on the worn yellow grass, with his
miserable head between his helpless hands.

Anthea and Jane whispered together in the passage downstairs, where the cocoanut
matting was—with the hole in it that you always caught your foot in if you were
not careful. Martha’s voice could be heard in the kitchen,—grumbling loud and
long.

“It’s simply too dreadfully awful,” said Anthea. “How do you know all the
diamonds are there, too? If they aren’t the police will think mother and father
have got them, and that they’ve only given up some of them for a kind of
desperate blind. And they’ll be put in prison, and we shall be branded outcasts,
the children of felons. And it won’t be at all nice for father and mother
either,” she added, by a candid afterthought.

“But what can we do?” asked Jane.

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“Nothing—at least we might look for the Psammead again. It’s a very,
very hot day. He may have come out to warm that whisker of
his.”

“He won’t give us any more beastly wishes to‐day,” said Jane flatly. “He gets
crosser and crosser every time we see him. I believe he hates having to give
wishes.”

Anthea had been shaking her head gloomily—now she stopped shaking it so suddenly
that it really looked as though she were pricking up her ears.

Oh, joy!—there was the Psammead, basking in a golden sandy hollow and preening
its whiskers happily in the glowing afternoon sun. The moment it saw them it
whisked round and began to burrow—it evidently preferred its own company to
theirs. But Anthea was too quick for it. She caught it by its furry shoulders
gently but firmly, and held it.

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“Here—none of that!” said the Psammead. “Leave go of me, will you?”

But Anthea held him fast.

“Dear kind darling Sammyadd,” she said breathlessly.

“Oh yes—it’s all very well,” it said; “you want another wish, I expect. But I
can’t keep on slaving from morning till night giving people their wishes. I must
have some time to myself.”

“Of course I do,” it said. “Leave go of me or I’ll bite!—I really will—I mean it.
Oh, well, if you chose to risk it.” Anthea risked it and held on.

“Look here,” she said, “don’t bite me—listen to reason. If you’ll only do what we
want to‐day, we’ll never ask you for another wish as long as we live.”

The Psammead was much moved.

“I’d do anything,” it said in a tearful voice. “I’d almost burst myself to give
you one wish after another, as long as I held out, if you’d
page: 297 only never, never ask me to do it after to‐day. If
you knew how I hate to blow myself out with other people’s wishes, and how
frightened I am always that I shall strain a muscle or something. And then to
wake up every morning and know you’ve got to do it. You don’t know
what it is—you don’t know what it is, you don’t!” Its voice cracked with
emotion, and the last “don’t” was a squeak.

Anthea set it down gently on the sand.

“It’s all over now,” she said soothingly. “We promise faithfully never to ask for
another wish after to‐day.”

“Well, go ahead,” said the Psammead; “let’s get it over.”

“How many can you do?”

“I don’t know—as long as I can hold out.”

“Well, first, I wish Lady Chittenden may find she’s never lost her jewels.”

The Psammead blew itself out, collapsed, and said, “Done.”

“I wish,” said Anthea more slowly, “mother mayn’t get to the police.”

“Done,” said the creature after the proper interval.

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“I wish,” said Jane suddenly, “mother could forget all about the diamonds.”

“Done,” said the Psammead; but its voice was weaker.

“Wouldn’t you like to rest a little?” asked Anthea considerately.

“Yes, please,” said the Psammead; “and before we go any further, will you wish
something for me?”

“Can’t you do wishes for yourself?”

“Of course not,” it said; “we were always expected to give each other our
wishes—not that we had any to speak of in the good old Megatherium days. Just
wish, will you, that you may never be able, any of you, to tell anyone a word
about Me.”

“Why?” asked Jane.

“Why, don’t you see, if you told grown‐ups I should have no peace of my life.
They’d get hold of me, and they wouldn’t wish silly things like you do, but real
earnest things; and the scientific people would hit on some way of making things
last after sunset, as likely as not; and they’d ask for a graduated income‐tax,
and old‐age pensions and manhood suffrage, and
page: 299 free secondary education, and dull things like that; and get them, and keep
them, and the whole world would be turned topsy‐turvy. Do wish it! Quick!”

Anthea repeated the Psammead’s wish, and it blew itself out to a larger size than
they had yet seen it attain.

“And now,” it said as it collapsed, “can I do anything more for you?”

“Just one thing; and I think that clears everything up, doesn’t it Jane? I wish
Martha to forget about the diamond ring, and mother to forget about the keeper
cleaning the windows.”

“It’s like the ‘Brass Bottle’,” said Jane.

“Yes, I’m glad we read that or I should never have thought of it.”

“Now,” said the Psammead faintly, “I’m almost worn out. Is there anything
else?”

“No; only thank you kindly for all you’ve done for us, and I hope you’ll have a
good long sleep, and I hope we shall see you again some day.”

“It that a wish?” it said in a weak voice.

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“Yes, please,” said the two girls together.

Then for the last time in this story they saw the Psammead blow itself out and
collapse suddenly. It nodded to them, blinked its long snail’s eyes, burrowed,
and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last, and the sand closed over
it.

“I hope we’ve done right?” said Jane.

“I’m sure we have,” said Anthea. “Come on home and tell the boys.”

Anthea found Cyril glooming over his paper boats, and told him. Jane found
Robert. The two tales were only just ended when mother walked in, hot and dusty.
She explained that as she was being driven into Rochester to buy the girls’
autumn school‐dresses the axle had broken, and but for the narrowness of the
lane and the high soft hedges she would have been thrown out. As it was, she was
not hurt, but she had had to walk home. “And oh, my dearest dear chicks,” she
said, “I am simply dying for a cup of tea! Do run and see if the kettle
boils!”

“So you see it’s all right,” Jane whispered. “She doesn’t remember.”

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“No more does Martha,” said Anthea, who had been to ask after the state of the
kettle.

As the servants sat at their tea, Beale the gamekeeper dropped in. He brought the
welcome news that Lady Chittenden’s diamonds had not been lost at all. Lord
Chittenden had taken them to be re‐set and cleaned, and the maid who knew about
it had gone for a holiday. So that was all right.

“I wonder if we ever shall see the Psammead again,” said Jane wistfully as they
walked in the garden, while mother was putting the Lamb to bed.

“I’m sure we shall,” said Cyril, “if you really wished it.”

“We’ve promised never to ask it for another wish,” said Anthea.

“I never want to,” said Robert earnestly.

They did see it again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not in a
sand‐pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was in a—But I
must say no more.